Guitarist Bob Balch would seem to be on something of a creative binge, between an impending Fu Manchu 2LP and recent releases from Yawning Balch and Big Scenic Nowhere, and with Slower he presents a manifestation of the ultimate beer-drunk band idea. “What if, like, you took Slayer, and slowed it down?”

That’s what Slower is on paper. The songs of seminal Californian thrashers Slayer, played slower. The reality of Slower, which is the Balch-led project’s Heavy Psych Sounds-delivered debut album, is a selection of five covers that offers a richer experience than the math of the band’s purpose might lead one to believe. The Slayer originals they’ve chosen to rework — “War Ensemble,” “Blood Red,” and “Dead Skin Mask” from 1990’s Seasons in the Abyss, “The Antichrist” from 1983’s Show No Mercy and, to close, the title-track of 1988’s South of Heaven — are classics within the sphere of metal, and are treated with due respect even as they’re rearranged and turned into something pointedly not what they originally were.

This is done with care and love of the source material, and a sense of curation that is all the more resonant with the lineup Balch assembled for the project. Drummer Esben Willems (of Monolord; he has a solo album coming in addition to appearing here) in Gothenburg, Sweden, vocalist Amy Tung Barrysmith (Year of the Cobra) in Seattle, and bassist Peder Bergstrand (Lowrider) in Stockholm comprise the ‘main band’ on the record, developing a persona of their own even on covers through means of the rearrangement process. That is, they took the songs and reworked them. No one here is inexperienced or incapable. If you believe in supergroups, Slower‘s pretty damn super even before you get to Laura Pleasants (The Discussion, ex-Kylesa) and Scott Reeder (currently Sovereign Eagle, ex-Kyuss, The Obsessed, Goatsnake, needs to do another solo record, etc.) swapping in on vocals and bass, respectively, for “South of Heaven” at the finish. A goofy, fun idea for a band/album as Slower might be, the end result is pointedly not bullshit where it very easily (perhaps with different personnel) could have been.

Underlining the point: Slower is not a tossoff. It’s not a joke band. While indeed the songs are largely reduced in tempo, there is an aspect of the project that feels a bit like the impetus behind it was Balch wanting to take on playing both the Kerry King and Jeff Hannneman (from whose 2013 death the band never really recovered) solos, which he does with all suitable respect for the personalities of Slayer‘s two guitarists, whammy squeals and speed enough to speak to thrash. If that was the case, fair enough for the homage. It’s just a thing not everyone could do at the level it’s done here. Some of those shredfest ripper solos are no less iconic than the lyrical declarations of the choruses to “War Ensemble” or “Dead Skin Mask,” and they are put on a pedestal along with a treasure trove of groove that was lurking beneath the furious intensity of the originals. “War Ensemble,” opening here as it does on Seasons in the Abyss with some transposed urgency, unveils its central riff as a righteous nodder with Bergstrand bringing new tonal presence to the verse, Willems‘ casual double-kick giving an easy ride into the stop, and Barrysmith in immediate command.

The five-minute original becomes the 10-minute cover (it is both opener and longest track; immediate points), and as a lead-in for “The Antichrist,” “Blood Red” and “Dead Skin Mask,” “War Ensemble” blends the familiar — it was one of Slayer‘s many landmarks and a live-set feature for decades before the band ‘ended’ (never say never) in 2019 with 12 records and enough influence to make a project like this happen across microgenres — the surprises it holds and affirmations it makes are crucial to what follows. One doesn’t necessarily think of Slayer as an atmospherically-minded band, though they were at times (and perhaps a second Slower LP could honor Slayer and Sabbath both in opening with the storm at the start of “Raining Blood”; uniting worlds or at least disparate ends of the same one), but Slower dig into “The Antichrist” and find a gritty slog that becomes insistent in a chorus that takes the already-doubled vocals and adds backing tracks to emphasize a depth that is Slower‘s own in a song that, being a deeper cut — as opposed to a Slayer ‘hit,’ I guess? they did used to play their music videos on the tee-vee sometimes — allows Balch (who trips out the midsection admirably taring toward psychedelia), Barrysmith, Bergstrand and Willems to flesh it out and find a new path to the rotted-soul ascension of its title figure.

The melody emergent in “The Antichrist” is expanded upon in “Blood Red,” the centerpiece of the CD and presumed side B opener on the LP, as the verse riff becomes a strut and the chorus opens to a breadth Slower have been holding in reserve. It’s an un-pop singalong, complete with backing ‘oohs’ for “You cannot hide the face of death/Oppression ruled by bloodshed/No disguise can deface evil/The massacre of innocent people,” which are lines that sadly retain their relevance these 34 years after the fact, and are more sinister for the sweetness of Barrysmith‘s delivery. With “Dead Skin Mask” and “Seasons in the Abyss” still to come, “Blood Red” has a harder road making an impression, and that was true with Slayer‘s version as well in 1990, but amid the forward roll and chug of the verse and the arrival-point feel of the hook, it is the vocals even more that distinguish it as an unexpected highlight.

And I know Slayer have a ton of iconic tracks, from the prior-mentioned “Raining Blood” through “Disciple,” “Angel of Death” — maybe better to leave that one alone? — and “Piece by Piece,” but especially the first and maybe only time out, pairing “Dead Skin Mask” and “South of Heaven” at the end of Slower‘s Slower feels natural. The latter came before the former, and is arguably the most ‘doom’ Slayer ever got, where “Dead Skin Mask” showed up on the next album and refined those very purposes. Both are the kinds of songs dudes get tattoos of, but as they have all along, Slower tread carefully in terms of balancing respect for where the songs came from and taking them where they want to go. Not to be understated is the subversive element of a woman delivering the lyrics to “Dead Skin Mask,” which was never explicit but strongly implied misogynist violence, and Barrysmith resounds in the chorus, where “Dance with the dead in my dreams…” becomes a chant and all the more consuming for that. While I wish they repeated that finish four or five more times, I’m happy to take what I can get.

As noted, “South of Heaven” brings a lineup switch, Reeder stepping in for Bergstrand — the inclusion of those two speaks as well to Balch wanting to bring a new sense of presence to the low end; he could easily have handled bass himself as an afterthought; as is, bass becomes an essential part of the character of the band in a way Slayer‘s Tom Araya probably wouldn’t have expected — and Pleasants taking over for Barrysmith. Dark toned, Balch begins on guitar and Reeder and Pleasants soon join for the opening build, ending of course with the line “Before you see the light” stretched to fill the new spaces in the riff before the guitar, bass and drums stop cold to let Pleasants croon the second part of the lyric: “You must die.”

Shit, I’m ready. Let’s go. If you could get audio tattooed on your person, that moment might be worth carrying around for the rest of your life but it’s already ingrained in the heads of Slayer fans, so take that as you will. Pleasants toys with the verse arrangement somewhat, perhaps covering some awkwardness in the patterning born of the change in pace with effects and layering, but it’s nothing that feels out of line with the mood or atmosphere Slower bring to “South of Heaven,” the stinkface-inducing stomp of Willems‘ drums glorious in manifesting a sense of methodical aggression over the chaos referenced in the chorus — “Chaos rampant/An age of distrust/Confrontations, impulsive habitat (or ‘sabbath’)” before they got right down to it, “On and on, south of heaven” — as Balch likewise digs deeper to find a nastiness of tone that is undeniable. It ends, as it invariably would, with shred given over to noise and a tease of the thuds at the end of “Postmortem” that, on 1986’s Reign in Blood, mark the transition into “Raining Blood” itself. The message seems to be: maybe next time.

Generally speaking and across a wide range of contexts, I suck at fun. Accordingly, I was a little apprehensive in taking on Slower because I felt like maybe it would be a party and I wouldn’t really be able to get my head into the right space for it. That’s not how it went, either in terms of the atmosphere of the record or my listening experience with it. I don’t know that Slower will or won’t do more — certainly no one involved lacks other projects to focus on — but I hope they do, and as a love letter to Slayer, the execution of these songs and the obvious heart and thought put into them, Slower resonates, however familiar you may or may not be with the originals.

Slower, Slower (2024)

Slower on Instagram

Heavy Psych Sounds on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds on Instagram

Heavy Psych Sounds on Bandcamp

Heavy Psych Sounds website

There’s comment from project participants Bob Balch (who spearheaded the idea), Esben Willems (who drums on the entire record) and Peder Bergstrand (who plays bass on all but one track, sharing space with Scott Reeder) below, and when you can hear from members of Fu Manchu, Monolord and Lowrider, I sincerely doubt any comment I might make matters. Those three speak below on how Slower — the conceptual covers project that, yes, dooms up select Slayer tracks both originally speedy like “War Ensemble” streaming below or, duh, slower, like inevitable closer “South of Heaven” — came together, and with Year of the Cobra‘s Amy Barrysmith on vocals for the majority and The Discussion‘s Laura Pleasants (also ex-Kylesa) taking over for the aforementioned finisher, it’d be a release of note no matter who they were taking on.

Maybe next time out they’ll do Duran Duran. Or maybe they’ll finally unveil the insistent creep at the heart of “Raining Blood.” I won’t claim to know, but given both personnel and source material, I expect this will be a beacon as the underground emerges from the generally-dead doldrums of January and takes on 2024 in earnest. Looking forward to it, in other words.

But album preorders are up now, so don’t let me keep you. Heavy Psych Sounds announced last week it had snagged the oops-kind-of-a-supergroup outfit for this release, and Jan. 26 is the listed arrival date. By all means, dive in. From the PR wire:

Heavy Psych Sounds to announce SLOWER upcoming debut album – presale starts TODAY !!!

– new super band feat. members of Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Kylesa, Lowrider, Monolord and Year Of The Cobra – SLAYER tracks in a SLOWER mood

Today we are stoked to start the presale of the upcoming SLOWER self-titled debut album !!!

RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 26th

ALBUM PRESALE: https://www.heavypsychsounds.com/shop.htm#HPS288

USA PRESALE: https://www.heavypsychsounds.com/shop-usa.htm

RELEASED IN
10 ULTRA LTD TEST PRESS VINYL
100 ULTRA LTD SIDE A – SIDE B BLACK/ORANGE/WHITE VINYL
150 ULTRA LTD COLOR IN COLOR TRANSP. BACK. RED/SPLATTER BLACK VINYL
500 LTD NEON GREEN VINYL
BLACK VINYL
DIGIPAK
DIGITAL

TRACKLIST
SIDE A
War Ensemble – 10:39
The Antichrist – 8:13

SIDE B
Blood Red – 6:30
Dead Skin Mask – 6:08
South Of Heaven – 7:11

Bob Balch from FU MANCHU here. The idea for the SLOWER project started around four years ago. I was teaching a student how to play “South Of Heaven” by SLAYER but she was a beginner so we slowed it down. I thought that sounded cool so I tuned down to B standard and tried it. I added some drums and thought “someone in the doom community should do this and name it SLOWER.”

A few years later I befriended Steven “Thee Slayer Hippy” Hanford, best known for his work as the drummer in the influential Oregon punk band Poison Idea. He was backstage at a FU MANCHU show. Oddly enough I was wearing a POISON IDEA shirt and he told me that my shirt sucks. I asked who he was and why he was in our backstage. He told me and I felt stupid. We started drinking whiskey and talking about music. We stayed in touch over the next year or so and during Covid I told him about my SLOWER idea. He asked me to send him tracks. I waited too long because the day I sent the tracks he passed away. Totally tragic. I’m glad I got to know him even for a few years. He was a monster musician with a giant heart.

He will be greatly missed.

I shelved the project for a while after that. One day Esben from MONOLORD posted about musical collaborations. I love MONOLORD so I thought what the hell. I sent him some tracks and he killed it on drums. So I sent more. Then more. Shortly after that we started reaching out other musicians to get them involved. That’s how we ended up with this lineup. Everyone that contributed completely knocked it out of the park and I can’t thank them enough.

This project has been a long time coming and I’m beyond stoked on how it turned out. Without all of the players involved, Steven Hanford and my baritone Reverend guitar it wouldn’t have happened. Thanks to everyone involved and I hope you dig it! I’m a giant SLAYER fan so it’s been a treat to dig into these classic songs. Hopefully we can do another record in the near future. Look out for shows because they will happen!

Esben Willems – When Bob first approached me with the idea and I heard his scratch guitars, my first thought was “This is genius”. Those iconic tracks we all know by heart suddenly unveiled an unexpected dimension. I’m really proud of how this turned out.

Peder Bergstrand – “This might be blasphemous considering the circumstances, but when Bob reached out and asked if I’d want to play bass on sludged-out Slayer covers, I had to admit some of these tracks were brand new to me.

That made the experience even more special though, hearing and playing on the Slower version first, and then comparing to the original. Bob has really transformed these songs into something totally their own, and on a personal level I feel the rest of the band’s insane performances pushed me to my most inspired playing to date.

So incredibly stoked for people to hear this album.”

CREDITS

“War Ensemble” “Dead Skin Mask” “Blood Red” “The Antichrist”
Esben Willems (drums) MONOLORD
Peder Bergstrand (bass) LOWRIDER
Amy Barrysmith (vocals) YEAR OF THE COBRA
Bob Balch (guitars) FU MANCHU

“South Of Heaven”
Esben Willems (drums) MONOLORD
Scott Reeder (bass) KYUSS
Laura Pleasants (vocals) KYLESA
Bob Balch (guitars) FU MANCHU

SLOWER is:
Esben Willems (drums) MONOLORD
Peder Bergstrand (bass) LOWRIDER
Amy Barrysmith (vocals) YEAR OF THE COBRA
Laura Pleasents (vocals) KYLESA
Bob Balch (guitars) FU MANCHU
Scott Reeder (bass) KYUSS

https://www.instagram.com/slower_666/

https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUNDS/
https://www.instagram.com/heavypsychsounds_records/
https://heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com/
http://www.heavypsychsounds.com/

Slower, “War Ensemble”

Well yeah, I mean, you look at the cast of characters here and you know those riffs are monstrous. Slower‘s kind of a no-brainer, and I’m not trying to be clever and knock the concept, because actually I know the concept works. Someone, at some point, has sent you some YouTube clip of Slayer slowed down. It sounds killer. That Bob Balch — already signed to Heavy Psych Sounds as part of Big Scenic Nowhere and Yawning Balch, also of Fu Manchu, PlayThisRiff.com, ex-Minotaur, and so on — decided to do it for real with Esben Willems (Monolord, Studio Berserk) on drums, and Laura Pleasants (The Discussion, ex-Kylesa) and Amy Barrysmith (Year of the Cobra) sharing vocal duties, well, I mean, well yeah. Yeah. Of course. Yeah.

I wouldn’t have minded if Peder from Lowrider — who shares bass duties with Scott Reeder (Kyuss, Goatsnake, The Obsessed, etc.), as he should — got a song to sing, as his voice is perfect for something airy and open, which some of Slayer‘s material could be (re-)interpreted to be, but Heavy Psych Sounds just signed the band and both the label and Balch say they hope more is coming, so maybe that’s a future possibility. Balch also mentions live shows. That’d be a fun one to see at a festival in some field somewhere, hopefully properly hydrated.

If you can dig it, and oh, I think probably you can, here’s the info from the PR wire:

Heavy Psych Sounds to announce SLOWER (feat. members of Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Kylesa etc.) signing for their debut album !!!

*** SLOWER *** – brand new project feat. members of Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Kylesa, Monolord, Lowrider and Year Of The Cobra –

We’re incredibly stoked to announce that the brand new super band SLOWER signed to Heavy Psych Sounds Records for their debut album !!!

ALBUM PRESALE + FIRST TRACK PREMIERE: October 31st

BIOGRAPHY

Bob Balch from FU MANCHU here.

The idea for the SLOWER project started around four years ago. I was teaching a student how to play “South Of Heaven” by SLAYER but she was a beginner so we slowed it down. I thought that sounded cool so I tuned down to B standard and tried it. I added some drums and thought “someone in the doom community should do this and name it SLOWER.”

A few years later I befriended Steven “Thee Slayer Hippy” Hanford, best known for his work as the drummer in the influential Oregon punk band Poison Idea. He was backstage at a FU MANCHU show. Oddly enough I was wearing a POISON IDEA shirt and he told me that my shirt sucks. I asked who he was and why he was in our backstage. He told me and I felt stupid. We started drinking whiskey and talking about music. We stayed in touch over the next year or so and during Covid I told him about my SLOWER idea. He asked me to send him tracks. I waited too long because the day I sent the tracks he passed away. Totally tragic. I’m glad I got to know him even for a few years. He was a monster musician with a giant heart.

He will be greatly missed.

I shelved the project for a while after that. One day Esben from MONOLORD posted about musical collaborations. I love MONOLORD so I thought what the hell. I sent him some tracks and he killed it on drums. So I sent more. Then more. Shortly after that we started reaching out other musicians to get them involved. That’s how we ended up with this lineup. Everyone that contributed completely knocked it out of the park and I can’t thank them enough.

This project has been a long time coming and I’m beyond stoked on how it turned out. Without all of the players involved, Steven Hanford and my baritone Reverend guitar it wouldn’t have happened. Thanks to everyone involved and I hope you dig it! I’m a giant SLAYER fan so it’s been a treat to dig into these classic songs. Hopefully we can do another record in the near future.

Look out for shows because they will happen!

SLOWER is:
Esben Willems (drums) MONOLORD
Peder Bergstrand (bass) LOWRIDER
Amy Barrysmith (vocals) YEAR OF THE COBRA
Laura Pleasents (vocals) KYLESA
Bob Balch (guitars) FU MANCHU
Scott Reeder (bass) KYUSS

https://www.instagram.com/slower_666/

https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUNDS/
https://www.instagram.com/heavypsychsounds_records/
https://heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com/
http://www.heavypsychsounds.com/

Released in 2002 on Rise Above Records and The Music Cartel (which at the time brought Rise Above‘s releases to the US market), Coup de Grace is the fourth album from London’s Orange Goblin. In some ways it was a departure, and in some ways an affirmation of the band they were becoming and would continue to become. Transitional? Yeah, but a standout too. If you only know their first couple records, or you only know their latter-day output — their latest LP, The Wolf Bites Back (review here), came out in 2018 — it might take a minute or two to understand where they’re coming from.

But, until they actually go ahead and just release an album of Motörhead covers, Coup de Grace is probably the closest they’ve come yet to doing so. Where their 1997 debut, Frequencies From Planet Ten (discussed here), and its 1998 follow-up, Time Travelling Blues (discussed here), had been pretty well dug into the then-formative idea of what stoner rock was, grown out of the band’s origins as Our Haunted Kingdom and inflected with doom accordingly, and 2000’s The Big Black (discussed here) began to expand upon in sound, drawing back on the fuzz and filling that space with a harder-edged burl that, over time, has become a defining element of Orange Goblin‘s craft. Coup de Grace would continue that stylistic movement while at the same time stripping down the approach to as raw as it’s ever gotten in their career.

Aided in their cause by producer Scott Reeder (Kyuss, The Obsessed, etc.), Nebula‘s Tom Davies and twice-appearing guest vocalist John Garcia (Kyuss, Slo Burn, Unida, Hermano, etc.) — who shows up on the ultra-hooky “Made of Rats” and the late “Jesus Beater” — guitarists Pete O’Malley and Joe Hoare, then-bassist Martyn Millard, drummer Christopher Turner and vocalist Ben Ward brought a new echelon of themselves to the work they did across Coup de Grace‘s 12 tracks and 51 minutes, from the right-on-fuck-yes heavy chug of “Rage of Angels” and the boozy brawl of “Monkey Panic” to the out and out punk rock of opener “Your World Will Hate This” and the Misfits cover “We Bite,” the ’70s heavy blues of “Stinkin’ o’ Gin” and the careening biker vibe in “Whiskey Leech” and the quintessentially-their-own cuts like “Getting High on the Bad Times” and “Born With Big Hands,” Orange Goblin‘s we’re-down-but-at-least-we’re-drunk point of view taking shape amid the fuzz-overdose of “Red Web” or “Made of Rats,” the hook of which is so straight-ahead it feels like the song is punching you in the face with it, which, yeah, it kind of is.

The acoustic-led instrumental “Graviton” notwithstanding, one thing Coup de Grace doesn’t really try to do is hypnotize. “Stinkin’ o’ Gin” is the longest cut at 7:21 and has its jam as it pushes deeper into the second half of the song, but even there, you know in hearing it that Orange Goblin are going to bring it back around to finish out, and they do, letting the album cap with a sample: “What the hell was that shit?” Nearly 20 years later, it’s a record that’s only continued to hold up, and it does so while finding a blend of heavy rock, punk, and doom that feels as organic as anything Orange Goblin have ever done to-date. At no point during Coup de Grace does it sound like the band sat down and said, “Okay, now we need a song that does this” — maybe they actually did, but it doesn’t matter because the finished product of the album doesn’t sound that way. It sounds like they were in the rehearsal space following riffs and this is where they led to.

And at some point you have to give mention to the production specifically, because Coup de Grace doesn’t sound like anything other Orange Goblin release, before or since. Yes, they absolutely built on what they did here with 2004’s Thieving From the House of God, but the charged aggression that began to show its head with The Big Black and seemed to come into focus here would inevitably continue to become a feature for them, on Thieving as well as 2007’s recently-reissued Healing Through Fire, pairing with the penchant for memorable songcraft that’s been a part of their identity since the first record but that really came forward starting with Time Travelling Blues as well. But the sound of Coup de Grace is distinct, and the balance it strikes on its own is perfectly suited to the material, allowing “Rage of Angels” or “Red Web” to be thick enough to get their point across but still be consistent with barroom throwdowns like “Getting High on the Bad Times,” or twisting speeds of “We Bite” and “Your World Will Hate This.”

Maybe this is the true record that’s not overthought. Maybe this is the one. It doesn’t by any means sound thrown together haphazardly — the sounds are sharp and you certainly wouldn’t call anything missing from the end result of the mix — but Coup de Grace feels almost live-tracked for the energy Orange Goblin put behind their delivery, and Reeder‘s recording job captures that in undeniable form. Maybe it did just happen that way. Wouldn’t that be something? Imagine that for a minute.

Orange Goblin‘s progression would continue, has continued, to evolve over nearly two decades, and each of their albums is a landmark on their narrative path. Coup de Grace is no mere aside — it’s crucial for what it tells you about where they’re coming from as players and as a group collaborating together on songs — and as much as their output over the last 10 years on the aforementioned The Wolf Bites Back, 2014’s Back from the Abyss (review here) and/or 2012’s A Eulogy for the Damned (review here) has seen them push more toward hard-landing metal, the stylistic foundation on display throughout “Made of Rats,” “Getting High on the Bad Times,” “Born With Big Hands,” “Monkey Panic” and others from Coup de Grace can still be heard in their sound. They are, then, persistently themselves in what they do.

Unfuckwithable? Pretty much.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

Thanks for reading.

—

I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to having these songs stuck in my head for the next few days. I had wanted to close out last week with this record, even had the back end stuff on the post ready to roll out once I actually got the writing done, but there turned out to be too many announcements coming in last Friday to make it happen in the time I had available. And I can’t really fool myself into thinking anyone’s weekend beyond my own hinges on what I feel compelled to say about a 20-year-old Orange Goblin album. Truth is, I just like writing about them and was bummed to have to push it back. But we got there eventually.

Here’s how the rest of December looks:

— Next week is not the Quarterly Review.

— The week after is. I need to look over the next week, because I might have two full weeks’ worth of stuff and if I do, I’m going to do half in December and half in January, five days each with 50 records for a total of 100.

— The week after that is the Xmas holiday. My goal is to have my Best of 2021 stuff up by Xmas Eve.

— After the holiday I don’t really have a plan yet, but hopefully I can either wrap up some final 2021 reviews or start on stuff that’s coming out in January. We’ll see.

If past is prologue, I’ll be playing catchup forever with this stuff, but who knows. I’ve managed to successfully get through every year-end whatnot to this point, so I’m reasonably confident I can do so again, no matter how many rolled eyes I might garner from The Patient Mrs. in the meantime. Well earned, all of them. I am, in fact, ridiculous, and I do these things to myself.

I’ve got about an hour until The Pecan’s bus drops him off and I need to make Gimme Metal playlists — two of them, because of the holiday — and set up stuff for Monday so I can write probably over the weekend as much as possible, so I’m going to leave it there. Motivation to get up in the morning has been nil, so I’ve been doing my best to accommodate that. I’m very tired. It’s kind of my thing.

But again, the stuff that (I think) needs to get done does, and even if I end up having to move an Orange Goblin Friday Full-Length down a week, ain’t nobody crying but me. So there.

Please add your picks to the year-end poll.

Please buy Obelisk sweatpants.

Please be kind to each other. Have a great and safe weekend. Hydrate, celebrate love, be cool like you are, watch your head. I’ll be back on Monday and kicking around on the laptop as much as possible this weekend.

FRM.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

As of this writing, I just finished cutting the voice tracks for this episode of The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio, which is centered around the Kyuss family tree. No, it’s not the entire thing — how could it possibly be the entire thing? — but it’s definitely a decent portion of it. You’ve got your John Garcia bands in Unida, Slo Burn and Hermano. You’ve got Nick Oliveri‘s acoustic stuff and Scott Reeder sitting in on the Yawning Sons record. You’ve got Ché and two solo tracks from Brant Bjork, along with Desert Sessions and Queens of the Stone Age and even Them Crooked Vultures just because I thought it was ridiculous coming out of The Obsessed. I was right about that, incidentally.

I guess if there’s an overarching lesson to taking a look at the Kyuss family tree, it’s the sheer insane amount of music these people have produced in the last 25-plus years. From Brant Bjork joining Fu Manchu to Josh Homme hosting the Desert Sessions and Alfredo Hernandez playing drums for Yawning Man, it’s unreal how far the branches go, and once you get into the fact that Scott Reeder was in The Obsessed with Wino, there’s an entire other tree right there. Forest of Riffs. I’m not complaining — the more the merrier — but if you sit and think about it for too long, it’s little short of overwhelming.

If you get to listen to the show, I hope you dig it. If not, thanks for reading anyhow.

Here’s the full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 08.30.19

Kyuss	Whitewater	Welcome to Sky Valley (S/T; 1994)
Kyuss	Green Machine	Blues for the Red Sun (1992)
BREAK
Desert Sessions	Avon	Desert Sessions Vol. 3 & 4 (1998)
Slo Burn	Pilot the Dune	Amusing the Amazing (1996)
Ché	Blue Demon	Sounds of Liberation (2000)
Queens of the Stone Age	The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret	Rated R (2000)
Scott Reeder	As I’m Dreamin’	TunnelVision Brilliance (2006)
Brant Bjork	Automatic Fantastic	Jalamanta (1999)
BREAK
Brant Bjork	Somebody	Mankind Woman (2018)
Hermano	Exam Room	…Into the Exam Room (2007)
House of Broken Promises	Tornado	Twisted (2017)
Nick Oliveri	I’m Gonna Leave You	Death Acoustic (2009)
Yawning Sons	Garden Sessions III	Ceremony to the Sunset (2009)
Fu Manchu	Saturn III	The Action is Go (1997)
Unida	You Wish	Coping with the Urban Coyote (1999)
BREAK
The Obsessed	Brother Blue Steel	Lunar Womb (1991)
Them Crooked Vultures	Mind Eraser, No Chaser	Them Crooked Vultures (2009)
Yawning Man	Camel Tow	Nomadic Pursuits (2010)
Vista Chino	Acidize… The Gambling Moose	Peace (2013)
Kyuss	El Rodeo	…And the Circus Leaves Town (1995)
Kyuss	Allen’s Wrench	Blues for the Red Sun (1992)

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio airs every other Friday at 1PM Eastern, with replays every Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next show is Sept. 13. Thanks for listening if you do.

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Wasn’t this bound to happen? Either Vol. 4 or Master of Reality? And by the way, there’s really no wrong answer there. So, you know, yeah. April 2020 is the listed ship date on Vol. 4 Redux and The Best of Black Sabbath, both of which continue Magnetic Eye Records‘ wildly successful ‘Redux’ series that’s already touched on Hendrix, Floyd, Helmet and has Alice in Chains on deck as a next installment. Still, obviously Black Sabbath have a special place in the history of heavy — right there at the start of it, maybe page three? — and accordingly, the big guns are coming out for the homage, whether it’s Matt Pike doing “FX” or Bongzilla taking on “Snowblind” or Tony Reed doing “Laguna Sunrise.” There’s no way it’s going to miss.

My only hope is that High Reeper make “Changes” heavy.

Interested to see how The Best of Black Sabbath pans out as well, with Year of the Cobra, Elephant Tree and Earthless and a host of others confirmed. I saw Elephant Tree do a killer version of “Paranoid” live this past Fall. Wouldn’t mind a studio take on that from them as well.

But really, there’s no way to lose here.

Word from Magnetic Eye follows:

If you told us even as recently as six weeks ago that we’d be working on a Redux version of Black Sabbath’s Volume 4 and, before the end of March, artists including The Obsessed, Whores, Zakk Wylde, and Matt goddamn Pike would have all committed to be part of the project, we would’ve probably answered, “Wow.”

And if you’d then said, “Oh yeah, you’ll also assemble a Best of Black Sabbath companion LP featuring Earthless, Elephant Tree, Year of the Cobra, and tons of other great artists including a whole crop of brand-new Magnetic Eye roster bands, who by the way you’ll find time to sign during all the madness of your Vol. 4 Kickstarter,” we’d have most likely said, “piss off.”

And yet, here we are, and all of the above has come to pass.

We are indeed reduxing Volume 4 and offering up a Best of Sabbath companion record, we do have some of the greatest heavy artists in the world committed to be part of this project, and we did somehow find time to sign three new bands during all of this, each of whom we’ll have a new record coming from later this year, and all of whom we’re inviting to be part of the project.

So, yeah. Wow.

THOU – WHEELS OF CONFUSION / THE STRAIGHTENER
THE OBSESSED – TOMORROW’S DREAM
HIGH REEPER – CHANGES
MATT PIKE – FX
SPIRIT ADRIFT – SUPERNAUT
BONGZILLA – SNOWBLIND
WHORES – CORNUCOPIA
TONY REED – LAGUNA SUNRISE
HAUNT – ST VITUS DANCE
ZAKK SABBATH – UNDER THE SUN / EVERY DAY COMES AND GOES

ALBUM ART AND DESIGN ALYSSA MOCERE

IN ADDITION, WE HAVE INCREASED THE SCOPE OF OUR PROJECT TO INCLUDE 13 ADDITIONAL BLACK SABBATH SONGS ON A BEST OF BLACK SABBATH REDUX RECORD.

Summoner
Elephant Tree
Scott Reeder
IRONWEED
Earthless
Chris Wyse
Rwake
Mooner
Year of the Cobra
Leather Lung
Brume
Caustic Casanova
Dead Witches

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Black Sabbath, “Snowblind”

Two things you should know about this post. First: It’s huge. Apart from the year-end lists that get posted each Jan. 1, it’s the longest post I’ve ever put up. The Q&As alone are 11,000 words. It’s more compendium than interview.

Second: That’s entirely on purpose.

What on earth would possibly earn such a vast landscape of text if not The Wall [Redux]? The third and most ambitious yet of Magnetic Eye Records‘ series of [Redux] compilations captures Pink Floyd at arguably (or, really, inarguably) their most iconic and comes accompanied by The Best of Pink Floyd, another Various Artists take on a swath of tracks from the generation-defining British band’s storied discography.

Like few records before it and even fewer since, The Wall is a landmark for what rock and roll could be, and the enduring emotional and sociopolitical relevance of a work of art that’s the better part of 40 is only part of what makes it so timeless when one considers the actual songwriting itself. Even for rock heads who aren’t Pink Floyd fans, it’s undeniable.

Before we get down to business on this thing, I need to thank Jadd Shickler of Magnetic Eye and Blue Heron (who take on “Stop”) for essentially putting it all together. He chased down the commentaries from the bands and we went back and forth about whether to run the whole thing or edit it down, but in the end, it seemed too crucial to me to not include everybody’s every word. I won’t be so self-aggrandizing as to call this a companion for The Wall [Redux] or The Best of Pink Floyd or anything like that, but it’s a look at the bands talking about how Floyd came into their lives, how they got to do the songs they did, and how they view the album in the context of today. Some take a political angle, some just dig the record. Both are valid, and The Wall stands up to scrutiny on both levels.

I’ve put the bands in alphabetical order, so you’ll get to see comments from: ASG, Blue Heron, Creepers, Los Disidentes del Sucio Motel, Domkraft, Forming the Void, Ghastly Sound, Greenleaf, Howling Giant, Mark Lanegan, Low Flying Hawks, Mars Red Sky, the Melvins, Mos Generator, Open Hand, Pallbearer, Red Mesa, Scott Reeder, Ruby the Hatchet, Sasquatch, Solace, Somnuri, Summoner, Church of the Cosmic Skull, Sergeant Thunderhoof, The Slim Kings, Spaceslug, Sunflo’er, T-Tops, WhiteNails, Worshipper, Yawning Man, Year of the Cobra. That’s nearly everybody involved in the project.

The copy is pretty raw — if you have time to precisely edit 11,000 words, congratulations on your life — but I’ve done a bit of formatting to hopefully make it clear. You’ll find it all beneath the track premieres below for Solace‘s take on “In the Flesh” and Red Mesa‘s version of “Breathe.” The Wall [Redux] and The Best of Pink Floyd are out Nov. 9 on Magnetic Eye Records. Preorders are available here.

Solace, “In the Flesh”

Red Mesa, “Breathe”

Behind The Wall [Redux]:
Inspirations and Motivations

—

Jason / ASG / Mother

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

I think for us as musicians, Pink Floyd was there in the beginning of learning how to play guitar, drums etc. The relative simplicity of many Floyd tunes went hand in hand with the primitive stages of guitar lessons-if you knew a handful of chords you could play many of their songs. So as a teenager that was a big deal, being able to play one of your favorite band’s songs in the early stages of playing an instrument – it kind of cemented a lifelong bond of influence and fandom with Pink Floyd.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering “Mother?”

In our attempt of covering “Mother” we chose to stay relatively true to the original- we recorded out in the desert of Texas so perhaps a bit of country western influence slipped in with some guitar tremolo and mandolin making their way on to the track. And as a vocalist trying to do both the Waters and Gilmour “voices” it provided a bit of a challenge – but hopefully our version retained the intriguing and beautiful dichotomy their voices created in many classic Floyd tunes.

Does today feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

I think any time or year is a good time to revisit Pink Floyd!

Jadd / Blue Heron / Stop

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

I was late getting turned onto Pink Floyd, I think in my late 20s… I’d always heard the hits on rock radio but never spent any time going deeper. For some reason, I decided to buy an unauthorized biography about Pink Floyd while at a big bookstore in Denver when I was 27 or so. And then, who knows why, I read it from cover to cover while driving cross-country from Erie, Pennsylvania to Albuquerque, NM. I don’t mean I read it at rest stops and hotels or listened to the audio version, I mean I read the physical book perched on my steering wheel while driving 80 miles per hour across the width of the United States – it was that engrossing, and I heard and learned things about constructing songs and being in a band that would affect me forever.

How did you arrive at your approach to your song?

Well, we claimed this song as a way to be part of the record but not feel like we were taking the more sought-after songs away from anyone. No one was fighting over the 42-second piano and vocal instrumental, but that was nice, we were free to kind of ingest it and blast out something uniquely us. Chav basically took on the heavy lifting of turning that sparse piano melody into multiple layers of texture and fuzz, and then we drew it out a little bit so it didn’t feel rushed. There are very few lyrics, so I really just tried to find a different point of view on them… Roger Waters does plaintive well, I was aiming more for resignation and self-disgust as the character recognizes his errors in judgement and skewed perspective… I like to think that came across in what we did.

Does 2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

As soon as Mike told me his plan to make The Wall the next Redux album, I was on board. It was February of 2017, and we were maybe a month into the Trump presidency, hearing about the wall he was going to build on the border and feeling completely alienated in our own country. Even though Floyd’s album was maybe not as political originally in its message, it seems like it took on more of that position over the years as it came to be associated with East Germany and such. So, given how powerless we were feeling after the most recent presidential election, the idea of re-building and re-imagining such a seminal album couldn’t have been a better way to make a statement about totalitarianism, divisiveness, and the kind of ignorance and hatred this administration makes people feel empowered to embrace. We should probably Redux the Sex Pistols next just to drive the point home.

Bill / Church of the Cosmic Skull / The Trial

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

Although Dark Side and the Syd Barrett era are the usual ‘way in’, The Wall was played a lot around the house when I was younger, so it was my introduction to the band. As we’re all aware it’s something of a marmite album, and certainly more Waters than anything else, but it’s undeniably a great concept album, from one of the many incarnations of Pink Floyd.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

I love the old story that Dark Side syncs up with The Wizard of Oz if you press play at the right time. The Trial has some of Gerald Scarfes darkest animation visuals as part of the feature film, so we have synced up the cover version with the original, so you can play both simultaneously and it will fit together. Musically we have changed the verses considerably, and as the original has parts from all the different characters on the album it made sense we gave each one to different singers in the band:

The Prosecutor – Brother Sam
The Teacher – Brother Michael
The Wife – Sister Caroline
The Mother – Sister Joanne
Pink & The Judge – Brother Bill

Does 2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

Politically it makes sense, and the increasing awareness of mental health issues, especially in the music industry, makes it all the more poignant.

Shiv Mehra / Creepers / Us and Them

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

As musicians and music fans Pink Floyd has been one of the most inspiring bands of a lifetime. I connected to them personally from the early days of Syd Barrett to the latter. They’ve pushed sonic boundaries for rock into a realm of psychedelia that opened the doors for so much of our music today.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

Well “Us and Them” was one of our first picks for covering because it sits in a range for us vocally and reflects our own personal taste and sound as a band.

Does 2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

2018 is a perfect time for revisiting The Wall because it has been 39 years and music has transformed in so many ways since, but The Wall paved the path for psychedelic bands like us.

Nicolas / Los Disidentes Del Sucio Motel / Welcome to the Machine

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

My connection with PF is huge! This band has been part of my main influences for years. I have all Floyd albums and a lot of solo albums of each member. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to see the whole band performing together, but I was lucky enough to see David Gilmour and Roger Waters in concert. I saw the last tour of The Wall at the Stade de France in Paris in 2013. This concert was a turning point in my life. Probably the biggest concert I’ve ever seen and will ever see. Recently I saw Waters with my dad, it was also a wonderful moment. Pink Floyd is one of those timeless groups that cross generations. My father loves PF, I love PF and I hope my son will love PF too!

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

Pink Floyd is one of the few bands that connects us all in LDDSM. We all listen to this band on a daily basis, really. For each new album, we work on a cover that we play at the end of our concerts. For the album “Human Collapse”, it was “Welcome to the machine”. This appeared quite obvious by itself, because HC was written under the influence of PF from the start and is composed somewhat like “The Wall”. The way of composing and Gilmour’s guitar playing guided me a lot during the writing of this album. This man is a real god and I have immense respect for him. The sound he has created, his way of placing always the right notes at the right time, the sensitivity he puts in it, is pure genius. When we cover a song, we like to make it our own, as if the song could have been written by ourselves. But above all, we are always looking to keep its original identity. We don’t like to leave its uniqueness behind. People must be able to recognize it in the first seconds and have to say at the end “goddam, it really sounds like an LDDSM song!” That’s the point, make LDDSM stuff with the composition of another and respect the original song.

Does today feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

It is obvious that we are in a sadly perfect context for that. The political scope of the album has never been so justified. What we do with our planet is a shame. Trump is a shame, a monstrosity. But he is unfortunately not the only one. We live in an extremely violent and difficult world and I worry a lot, every day for the future of my children. In the manner of Waters, we might be tempted to build a wall around us to protect ourselves from others, but isolation is never the answer. We must break this wall, open ourselves to the unknown, reach out to others, it’s the only way for humanity to survive. This is the message of this album and it must be heard today more than never before.

Martin W. / Domkraft / Empty Spaces / One of These Days

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

As a band, we probably would not sound the way we do had it not been for Floyd. They have been THE band for our guitar player Martin, who basically has listened to them all his life and they were the sole reason for him picking up the guitar in the first place. The rest of the band are also fans, but we both discovered them at a later stage in life.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

We right away decided that we wanted to do something in the vein of “Domkraft interpreting Floyd” rather than note-perfect cover versions. Why try to match something that is already perfect? Let’s do our own take instead and create alternate versions of classic tracks. Like, we found ourselves stretching short segments of the songs into actual parts of our versions. Small sounds and vibrations from the originals getting more space and importance. When we got to do “Empty Spaces”, we immediately knew that we wanted to go even deeper into the brooding, desolate aspects of the song. We soaked it in reverb to achieve an almost drone-like vibe to emphasize the lonely, bare and exposed feeling of the track.

“One of these Days” is such a seminal track and probably one of our absolute favorites from the Floyd catalog, so that one felt like an obvious and insane choice at the same time. With both the studio and the Pompeii versions just oozing perfection, we just decided to just go for it, not look back, and do our own take – more fuzz-drenched and with the same kind of psych-inspired over-the-top guitar work that is to be found in most Domkraft songs. Plus, we took some liberties and incorporated a segment from another “Meddle” classic – the falling note arpeggio break from “Echoes” – which worked really nicely and gave it some breathing space in the freight train section of the track.

Does 2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

Oh, hell yes. Frighteningly good. These are Orwellian times, possible more in the Animal Farm sense than 1984, though. That particular album has gone from being political (at the time of its release) to being “just” a classic (post-Glasnost) to being super-political again. A super political classic.

Shadi / Forming the Void / Fearless

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

The first time I heard Pink Floyd was when I was 12. I had been studying music for a while and my father decided I was “ready” to hear them. We sat down together, and he played me the entire Wish You Were Here album. That moment changed my life forever. Pink Floyd became the band that I studied obsessively for the next few years. They sparked my lasting passion and serious pursuit of music and influences me deeply to this day.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

We had a short list of favorite Pink Floyd songs we might hypothetically cover one day. When we got this opportunity, it was with two weeks’ notice. From our list, ‘Fearless’ adapted the most naturally to our sound and fit most readily the time constraints we were given so it was an easy choice.

Does today feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

Anytime is a good time to revisit Pink Floyd! They are timeless.

TJ / Ghastly Sound / Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 1

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

Pink Floyd was one of the first and most important bands we were introduced to as children. I remember seeing posters for “The Wall” hanging up in my uncle’s bedrooms and being completely captivated by the artwork. In the 90’s, my father was really into home theater systems. When the Pink Floyd Pulse Live DVD came out, I was 8 years old. Our entire house would shake as we watched this and the cinematic adaptation of The Wall. This stuck with me until my teenage years and I began to discover cannabis. Thankfully, my parents were really open-minded about this specific substance and one summer night in my 13th year, they gifted me and a friend a half a bowl to smoke in the garage. Following our consumption of this gift, my friend and I got into my dad’s car and listened to Comfortably Numb on full blast in the driver and passenger seat. This experience was honestly a crucial moment in my development as a person and a musician.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

Approaching this cover was one of the most challenging experiences I’ve ever had as a musician. I think I threw away 3 or 4 instrumental versions before we landed on what we have now. Approaching a cover from such an iconic album is intimidating enough on its own. We had an extra challenge given that our specific track is more of an interlude; and comprised almost exclusively of David Gilmour playing guitar. Me, not being a guitarist, faced with executing something so clean in tone and performance was nothing short of terrifying. Our two main focuses were keeping true to the pace of the album and trying to maintain the feeling of crescendo as the album moves from Another Brick in the Wall Part 1 to Happiest Days of Our Lives. Ultimately, we decided that starting off true to the original and utilizing the ambient section of the song to take some liberties and transition into the next track was the best possible scenario. Hopefully we’ve succeeded and added something special for the listener to experience.

Does 2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

2018 is a great time to introduce this album to a new generation of listeners. Not only because of the juxtaposition of the current political climate, but because guitar-based music is coming back in a huge way. It’s my hope that people can take these adaptations and use them to expand upon more traditional approaches to songwriting in the stoner or doom genres.

Tommi Holappa / Greenleaf / Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 3 / Goodbye Cruel World

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

For me it all started with seeing the Live at Pompeii DVD. The musicianship, the sound landscapes, the songwriting, it’s just simply amazing! Since then I have bought all their albums and yes You can easily say the I have been influenced by them. On each Greenleaf album there is at least one or two songs that has a little bit of Pink Floyd influences in them, it could just be a little reverb/delay thing, a riff or just the mood of the song.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

Well we knew that we couldn’t just do ”covers” of the songs because nothing can beat the originals. So, we decided to not try to copy the songs too much and try to make them sound more like Greenleaf, a bit more bluesy and a bit more heavy.

Does 2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

Yes, it does! If you look all the stupidity that is going on in the world today it could drive any sane man crazy…

Tom and Zach / Howling Giant / Matilda Mother

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

They pioneered the idea of the concept album. While each song can stand alone, everything they wrote had a specific purpose within the album. Pink Floyd also showed us that you don’t have to fit within a certain genre, they were all about writing what they wanted, when they wanted.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering “Matilda Mother?”

It’s a weird song, and its focus on fairytales and escapism is something that appeals to us. ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ is often overlooked in the Pink Floyd catalogue and we wanted to represent that era.

Does today feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

The songwriting on The Wall is definitely worth revisiting, especially with the resurgence of classic rock influence on the heavy scene.

Mark Lanegan / Nobody Home

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

As a teenager, I stole a record one day. Walking out of the store carrying it behind an empty record cover I’d brought in with me. When I heard the store clerk shouting behind me to stop, I turned a corner and out of his vision for a second, I threw it like a knife into a bank of deep snow. Not finding it, the guy let me go. Hours later I returned to retrieve my copy of ‘The Wall’ and listened to it nonstop for a long time. One of the great records of all time, I’m pleased I was able to participate in this tribute. Legally, of course.

Low Flying Hawks / The Thin Ice

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

There’s always been a connection, we’ve always been into Pink Floyd, mostly the early years, the Syd Barrett stuff, atom heart mother, more, meddle, etc. probably up until the wall. We feel the true magic obviously after Syd left (cause Syd was the magic) was the mix of Roger and David, but once Roger started to lead we thought it was too rigid to forced and the other way around when David was in the lead it got too honey-dripped, too forced to the exact opposite, so together it was a perfect balance.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

We wanted to do something very simple, stripped to the core, the opposite of the operatic circus approach roger gave the album and obviously the song.

Does 2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

We’re not political at all so we really never mix politics and music etc., we get the connection and the timing, but we feel you can always revisit an album if the bands are good and the songs are interesting.

Mars Red Sky / Comfortably Numb

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

Mat: To be honest, Pink Floyd belongs for me to the generation of my parents, they had some of their records, so it has always been familiar, and it took years to rediscover it by myself. Also, songs like “division bell” was constantly on the air in the early ’90s when I was digging Punk Rock and Grunge… One day I listened to ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn”, and I went crazy about what was coming out from the speakers!

Julien: My dad had ‘Dark Side of The Moon’ in his record collection, I liked that a lot. Later I got more into them through a couple of friends when I was twenty and was a bit fascinated by the whole Syd Barrett mystery. I like most of their albums a lot, with a preference for some of the earlier ones (‘A Saucerful of Secrets’ especially)

Jimmy: ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ and ‘Atom Heart Mother’ are two of my favorite albums ever…

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

Julien: We got the opportunity to pick Comfortably Numb, that was great because it’s one of our favorites. We had fantasized on covering this song for a long time, I had tried it awkwardly with a previous band. Here we put it all together fairly quickly, and we really like the way it came out. Our friend Benjamin Mandeau did a killer job at recording and mixing it.

Does 2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

Mat: Definitely there’s always a good reason to revisit such an album like that!

Dale Crover / The Melvins / In the Flesh?

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

I’ve been into the Floyd since I was in grade school, thanks to older brothers. The first record I had of theirs was “Animals.”

How did you arrive at your approach in covering “In the Flesh?”

We always put our own spin on the song we’re covering. We came up with a genius idea for this one. If I tell you it will spoil the surprise. You’re just going to have to hear it.

Does today feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

Sure, why not now? Roger Waters keeps revisiting it for his mega buck tours. They didn’t really tour that record when it came out. In the US they only played New York and LA. Here’s a fun fact: when we recorded Stoner Witch we used the same Fender Precision bass that Roger used on The Wall. I believe it belonged to Bob Ezrin, producer of the Wall.

Tony Reed / Mos Generator / Goodbye Blue Sky

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

There is no getting away from the influence of Pink Floyd. Their music has always seemed to be there and growing up in the 70s helped make them a part of the soundtrack of my youth. I have to be honest, when I first started playing music in around 1982, I was really burned out on the Pink Floyd “radio” songs and had never taken the time to explore the catalog. It wasn’t until about 15 years later that I heard the Meddle album and I was hooked on “Echoes”. Soon after, I took very little time hunting down the discography and studying it. Now they hold a very high place in my top bands.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

My usual approach at a cover is to try and replicate the song as close as I can, in performance and production. Using that technique, I come away from the project learning something about the recording and playing of the song. It makes me take an approach that I may not have chosen if I had written the song. In the end, I learn something that can possibly be applied to my own producing and writing. Not everybody agrees with this approach but it’s fun for me.

Does 2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

The Wall is a timeless piece of music. It’s a human album, that to me, speaks about a struggle that we all go through as we move through life. It doesn’t manifest itself as intensely in most people as it does in the “Pink” character, but we’ve all been “through some sh**” at one time or another. Some more than others and years of it can change a person into a different soul. It’s seriously heavy thinking for a rock ‘n’ roll album.

Justin / Open Hand / The Show Must Go On

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

What always has drawn us in to Floyd is Gilmour… his guitar playing and his voice … for those of us lucky enough to be exposed to Floyd at a young age (by our dads) you can’t help but be inspired by that band for the rest of our lives … and when you start playing guitar, Gilmour is a must study.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

We based our approach on the live version of “Show Must Go On” … it is a little longer live (extended) … they added another verse etc. … the live version of that song is better than the album version actually … so we went with that. As far as working with past Pink Floyd touring sax player Scott Page… I have known him for decades…met him when I was 13 or 14 … he was always involved in amazing bands (reo speedwagon… Supertramp…etc.) and Floyd … he gave me my first instrument … a saxophone… still have it … when it came time to record this cover … it was an obvious choice to go to the source … and even though there was never sax on the original he jumped at the chance to add some shit to it … recorded in the bathroom of my apartment…

Does today/2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

It’s a great time to revisit… having a whole new generation be turned on to Floyd via modern relevant bands that kick ass. … and Mike does an amazing job collecting those bands for these killer redux records… to be a part of two of these redux series for our favorite artists (Jimi Hendrix and pink Floyd) … so fucking cool man.

Pallbearer / Run Like Hell

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd generally or The Wall specifically?

Pink Floyd has been a major source of inspiration for us, since long before we started Pallbearer. The experimentation, the innovative production, and most importantly the great songwriting has always been a benchmark for us to strive for since we started this band

How/why did you choose “Run Like Hell,” and how did the amped-up take on it come about?

When we were approached about doing this project, we initially inquired about 3 or so tracks to see if they had already been claimed by other artists, RLH being one of them. We were excited to take on RLH because it would give us the opportunity to totally subvert the notion that we would end up doing something obvious. The song is already kind of outside of the realm of our already-Floyd-indebted style. It was different for them, so it gave us a chance to really think outside the box.

Our initial inspiration on how to approach it actually came from watching as many early live performances of it as we could find. We found that all of them were really vicious sounding, and a bit unhinged. They just felt off the rails, so we decided to just go full steam in that direction.

Does today/2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall, and why or why not?

The Wall is very much an album that explores different aspects of isolation. In 2018, our world is essentially more “connected” than ever before via technology, yet it feels like we are also becoming more and more isolated from one another as individuals. Additionally, nationalist tendencies are increasing globally at a terrifying rate. It seems like a perfect time to revisit and re-examine this classic album.

Brad / Red Mesa / Breathe

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

I started listening to Pink Floyd in high school in the mid-nineties. The first two albums I owned were on CD. ‘The Wall’ and ‘Dark Side of the Moon.’ I didn’t start paying music until after high school, so I was just a rabid fan of rock and roll, hungry to listen all the classic stuff. Both albums completely blew my mind. I spent hours in my room after school listening and reading the lyrics. I felt that Pink Floyd was the most intelligent band. Besides being phenomenal musicians, Roger Water’s lyrics spoke to me. He somehow managed to take philosophical concepts and weave them into a rock and roll band. It wasn’t just about women, drugs, and fast cars. Nothing wrong with that as subject matter, but Pink Floyd made you think about and question existence. As my younger brother and I digested The Wall and Dark Side, we discovered the rest of their albums. I fell in love with Meddle and Animals. The song “Echoes” on Meddle is my favorite psychedelic song of all time.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

We covered the song “Breathe” from Dark Side of the Moon. Picking the right song for the band was a challenge. We wanted to play to the strength of the band. Roman, our drummer texted me “How about Breathe?!” as I was looking at the guitar tab and plucking out the chords and rhythm. I thought that was a sign. I sent the band a voice memo of guitar stuff, they liked it, said we should make it heavier. We ran through it in practice and it felt great! We all love Pink Floyd so much. We felt honored to be asked to cover one of their songs. We wanted to do our very best and pay our respects.

In the studio, we played all the rhythm section ‘live’. It has a very organic feel to it. We really liked how it came out. I went back over and doubled the guitar track. For the iconic Dave Gilmour slide part, I played lap steel with a bunch of delay and reverb and heavy overdrive. We had a blast recording this one.

Matthew from Empty House Studio orchestrated us for “On the Run” the trippy instrumental song that comes in directly after “Breathe” ends. I stuck my head inside a grand piano banging away on the strings, while Roman was holding down that super cool drum part. At that point we had already polished off a bottle of Jameson, Matthew says “be careful, that piano is worth more than a house”. And I’m just banging away in there. Matthew was pushing us to get more creative and weirder. Super fun.

Does today/2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

Yes, absolutely. Politically, spiritually, and environmentally things are fucked in the US. It seems that The Wall’s concept and message is timeless. It came out in 1979. It could have been released in 2018 without altering a single word. As much as that album is brilliant, it’s sad we haven’t seemed to have evolved much in the past 40 years. However, revisiting this album will hopefully bring Pink Floyd’s message and music to a younger generation of fans.

Scott Reeder / Is There Anybody Out There?

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

When The Wall was released, it was my entry into Pink Floyd’s universe; and to this day is probably my biggest musical influence… right up there with The Beatles. My solo stuff always draws comparisons to Floyd. The damage is done deep – they were all I listened to for a long time! I feel lucky to have seen them a couple of times. Roger Waters quite a few times, too. Oddly enough, I had dinner with their final long-time bassist, Guy Pratt, and his wife few years ago at a Warwick Bass party. We were showing each other pictures of our properties and horses and had an awesome time. I didn’t realize at the time that his lady was Richard Wright’s daughter, Gala. She was very sweet.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering “Is There Anybody Out There?”

There’s not much to it… You’ve got the title question asked a few times, and then that iconic guitar run that I struggled to do some justice to. Structure-wise, that’s it. My fretting hand had developed trigger finger – my pinky and ring finger were locking closed, and after every take, it got worse, but I patched it up alright. The ambient stuff I constructed to reflect the desolate feeling out here on the ranch – I recorded guns in the distance, and our dog Rocky was scared and whimpering next to me, while his pal Harry was barking in the distance. My Chihuahua Scooter is in the mix towards the end, too – she passed shortly after this was finished – I’m so glad she’s on it! Got my 8-string bass in there for the scrapes run through a Whammy pedal to raise the tension. And it’s my first time using trombone on a track!

Does today/2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

At almost 30 years out… why not? It’s my favorite album of all time – probably the only album that I could sing all the words to! It’s an honor to be a part of this tribute to the greatest album of all time, and it’s absolutely killing me waiting to hear how the whole thing plays out!

Jillian Taylor / Ruby the Hatchet / Vera / Pigs (Three Different Ones)

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

Pink Floyd was one of the bands I was brought up on and a favorite of my father’s. I remember thinking they were really weird and scared me when I was young; especially The Wall movie which seemed to always play in the wee hours when I was sneaking TV. My mother’s side is from England and there are so many crossovers with Floyd lingo and English pride and reprimand (cue “hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way…”). When I was a teenager, and after an ugly divorce between my parents, my father gave me The Wall for my birthday. It was then that I felt like I understood their strangeness and the rebellious and political undertones. I even went through a rough year where I had to listen to The Dark Side of the Moon every single day to relate to all the beauty and pain in it.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your songs?

Everyone dove in to their respective parts. Pigs was a huge labor of love by all parties; especially Sean (keys) who recorded and engineered both tracks for us. It’s a lengthy track that we made even longer (additional apologies to Sean for having to mix down a 12-minute song dozens of times). We didn’t veer off course with Pigs much, it was fun to play it straight and make small twists with the organ, harmonies and vocals in female register. Vera was completely different as it’s a very short interlude (we managed to at least triple the length of it, of course). It came naturally to play around with Vera. I’ve always thought that song was so hauntingly pretty and used to hum an additional part I’d imagine there which we made happen in a bridge.

Does today/2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

I’d say yes, and until we reach some kind of Utopian society which doesn’t seem like it will realistically arrive; then maybe always. There’s a George Orwell quote from 1984 that always reminds me of The Wall: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.”

Cas, Keith and Riggs / Sasquatch / Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

Riggs: PF is one band that has consistently punctuated moments in my life from the age of 8 to whatever I am now. My brothers got tickets to The Wall at Madison Square Garden when I was a wee lad. I was completely bummed that I didn’t get to go, and I have spent the rest of my song-writing life trying to rip them off.

Keith: Floyd has had a big influence in many ways on me personally and our music. I guess it might not come through so much in our songs themselves, but I think about PF when I’m incorporating dynamics and textures into the songwriting. It’s definitely played into having Unger come in and drop more Hammond and B3 on our new record, Maneuvers.

Cas: To be honest, I’m the young buck in the band. Growing up as a metal kid in the late 80s, my first exposure to PF wasn’t a direct connection, but through Voivod’s cover of Astronomy Domine. Obviously, I had heard PF hits on classic rock radio, but hadn’t paid attention until I heard this tune in 8th grade. That take on that song drove me to dive into the PF catalog and I haven’t looked back since. Waters may not be flashy, but he writes some of the most memorable bass lines out there in rock. Huge influence on how I approach the instrument.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

Riggs: Another Brick in The Wall has always been an odd song for PF. I remember kids in school singing the song to be rebellious, but the disco beat always freaked me out. We wanted to change it up in a more soulful way and lose the kid chorus and disco beat. It’s the same approach we would take if we were to cover Money.

Cas: Keith and Riggs played around with several different versions. We thought about both extremes: a) keeping it true to form or b) deconstructing it to the point where it would be completely unrecognizable. We eventually ended up slowing it down and beefing it up but kept the melodies intact. The guys were definitely adamant about pulling out the Bee Gees beat from the original. In the end, we decided pulling the drums completely out of the verses gave the choruses a much larger impact. Then Riggs tried out his best (worst?) Academy Award-winning English accent on the wrap-up. Made me crave some pudding.

Does today feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

Riggs: It’s always a good time to revisit any PF album. Just as Roger Waters is accentuating the current political aspects on his tours, it’s great to see a bunch of talented bands give it their own take.

Keith: I think anytime you can cobble together such a great list of bands like the roster here, why not do it?

Cas: Given the current climate, there’s no better time than the present.

Dan / Sergeant Thunderhoof / The Happiest Days of Our Lives / Time

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

They were a mainstay in my household as a child. Those songs are so solidly imprinted within me that they’ve almost taken on another dimension. Floyd have a sound of their own that is pretty hard to pigeonhole and I guess we try to emulate that philosophy.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

“Happiest Days of our Lives” was a fun song for us to do, I even got to mimic the teacher’s voice at the beginning which was cool. We wanted to add a little bit of our theatricality to it which was quite hard given how short the song is, but we’re happy with what we did. Essentially the song acts as prelude to probably the most notable song on the album so our job was to set that up in the best way possible.

As for “Time,” this was really just a song that we all love. When it came to messing around with it, we found that by trying to make it more ‘hoof’ it simply sounded trite and a bit ‘try-hard.’ In the end after trying out different ideas, we pretty much just played it straight. In a way, this was us not trying to emulate Floyd but instead showing some respect to the song and humbly admitting that we can’t do any better that the original!

Does today/2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

I guess it depends on what it is you think The Wall is. For me the album represented a rejection of indoctrination, whether that be the education system, political structures or financial institutions. What we’ve seen over the last few years is a complete breakdown of social interaction. There is such a divide between what we perceive to be the two sides of the argument. For me, The Wall represents a mental prison, not a physical one. Some people are so quick to assume the worst in everyone and everything, it would be nice to get back to a place where we can all respectfully disagree with each other but still enjoy a beer and a good riff without fighting!

The Slim Kings / Young Lust

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

They are musically up there with the best. One of the bands to be studied in their song writing, production. They set up a mood that is undeniably Pink Floyd. Great teenager headphone music.

How did you arrive at your approach to your song?

So, there is no pressure to compete and make it sound like an original hit that people are used to – but we tried to cop most of the tricky licks so nobody would call us out. We recorded it live to tape quickly. Kacie Marie is a burlesque influenced singer and Instagram star who was hanging in the studio that day. She was the perfect woman to sing those background vocals.

Does 2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

There is never a bad time to listen to the wall. Particularly when you are on this side of it! Joking aside, the country is in a cold civil war right now, so anything ever written about people being divided and conquered is relevant.

Tommy Southard / Solace / In the Flesh

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

They’re an iconic band that influenced me as a young kid long before I even picked up a guitar. It helps when your cool uncle lives with you and has a copy of Ummagumma and it blows your mind in 2nd grade.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering In the Flesh?

Plug in and play like ourselves, hope for the best! I think we put our take on a classic tune from a masterpiece of an album. Tried to do it justice while still sounding like Solace.

Does today feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

Any day of any year is a good time to revisit any of the classic Floyd albums!

Somnuri / Sheep

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

We all have an appreciation for Pink Floyd but if you asked us individually, our favorite albums would probably vary. As a whole, there’s no denying Pink Floyd’s sound and aesthetic as being an influence on us as musicians and artists.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering “Sheep?”

This project was interesting because there weren’t many songs left to choose from and given the timeframe to complete it, ‘Sheep’ was a very ambitious choice. As much as we tried to make it our own, we felt we had to honor the original song as much as possible. Ultimately, recreating the vibe and atmosphere was the most intensive part of the process. We feel proud of the way we conveyed the song and took it above and beyond what we expected.

Does today/2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

Absolutely. With our current political and societal climate, the stories and concepts from the album seem as relevant as ever. One of the things that makes an album iconic is the sense of timelessness, and The Wall certainly has that feel, at least topically.

Bartosz Janik / Spaceslug

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

It’s very personal music for me. A lot of good and bad memories. Floyds were with me in hard times and help me stand on the ground. Love this band and David Gilmour is in fact a big inspiration for my guitar playing.

How did you arrive at your approach to your song?

We managed to make our version of it and reverse the structure. The original has more doodling and ambient sound and this massive guitars on the end. We managed to make it little different and change that to have less ambient and more guitars and factures.

Does today feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

It’s always good! My dream is to be on Dark Side of The Moon Redux in some future! Hope this will happen! Also, that kind of initiative will keep good vibe that Floyds deliver years ago. Great band and this was really an honor to be part of this re-edition!

AJ / Summoner / Hey You

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

I think our connection to Floyd is similar or the same to everyone else who plays this style of music. We’ve all been exposed to Pink Floyd our whole lives. I personally can say that it started with my parents listening to them when I was a kid. Followed by me taking that torch and running with it. Learning their discography as a teenager and striving to emulate them in the music I still write today. Summoner takes a lot from PF musically. When we get into our more ambient/atmospheric writing Floyd is always in the front of our minds. Not only do we draw from them musically, we are also influenced by their production style and studio magic.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering “Hey You?”

If I remember correctly, when we were asked to be a part of this we all agreed unanimously that “Hey You” should be our tune. You always have to be careful when covering a band like Pink Floyd. Everything they did was done right. You can’t expect to make one of their songs “better” you can only take what they have done and expand upon it and make it your own. We kept it tight to the template on our version because it was already so damn good. What we thought we could add was our style and texture to the tune and I think we did that well.

Does today/2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

It’s as good a time as any. As I said previously, it’s always a risky venture to cover such an iconic band/album. Those songs are engrained in everyone’s mind and to switch that up almost seems like a losing battle. But done right it can be pulled off and I think MER has done just that with the bands they have chosen to do this project. We were just so happy to be a part of it. I guess the timing is kind of right since (I think) we are coming up on the 40th anniversary of the release.

Carter / Sunflo’er / Bring the Boys Back Home

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

The riff in seven at the beginning of “Money” is a legendary use of odd meter. There’s so few solid examples of it in mainstream radio and making the realization as a youth leads to asking other questions about rhythm and where it comes from.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering “Bring the Boys Back Home?”

The original recording features a full marching band and choir, which we weren’t going to compete with, so the obvious choice for the cover was playing as minimally as possible. We wrote a chord melody for the guitar, reduced drum hits to only the most necessary, Ethan played saxophone and nailed it. Bohren & Der Club of Gore vibes were sought and achieved.

Does 2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

For all the obvious geopolitical reasons: yes.

Patrick / T-Tops / Nile Song

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

The Wall was my first introduction to Pink Floyd. When I first dug into the album 20+ years ago, the thing that struck me most was the overt loneliness & desolation at the heart of the record. This theme runs throughout much of their music, but obviously this is especially true with The Wall. What separates it from other Floyd records for me, is how it’s just a really solid, well-focused rock album (rock opera?) about brutal isolation & loss. These two themes are universally identifiable.

Though this album was inspired by WWII & the horrendous grief and loss it caused, I identify most with the songs about fractured relationships & the war & desolation that exists inside the narrator’s mind. Lyrically, my favorite songs on The Wall are “One of My Turns” which explores the madness & absurdity someone can exhibit to a loved one. First “love turns gray” then the narrator admits to being bored out of his skull and just going through the motions until he snaps into a manic scatterbrained episode of violence and destruction, scaring the hell out of the other person & then asks, “why are you running away?” Brilliantly followed by the backhanded apologetic begging of “Don’t Leave Me Now” where he reminds his partner about the “flowers I sent” & goes on to plead with them that he needs them (if only to “beat to a pulp” or “put through a shredder”) while simultaneously begging them not to leave.

How did you arrive at your approach to your song?

The Nile Song is possibly the most “straightforward” rock song in Pink Floyd’s catalog which is what drew me to it. The simplistic musical pattern and yelled/half screamed lyrics make it stand out from other Floyd songs and made it an easy choice for a cover. I was surprised no one else snagged this one before we were given the chance to. Of course, I’m aware of The Melvins covering this song in the early ’90s. Not that we (or anyone) could ever sound like the Melvins, but we kind of took a similar approach to covering it in just playing it basically the same as Pink Floyd just with louder more distorted guitars.

Does today/2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

It’s never a bad time to revisit a classic.

Taylor / WhiteNails / Waiting for the Worms

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

Pink Floyd is one of the quintessential musician’s bands. Their level of creativity and pushing boundaries has always been an inspiration to us. David Gilmour is one of our all-time favorite guitarists and there aren’t many musicians who have the taste and flair that he does. As well as one of the greatest guitar tones of all time!!!

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

Covering “Waiting for the Worms” was sort of a trial and error process. We wanted to add our own touch but really didn’t want to stray too far from the original work. We ended up changing the verses musically and tried to stray somewhat true to the vocal melody. We generally beefed up most of the guitar work and allowed Darcy to really sing on the track.

Does today/2018 feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

Releasing an album like the Wall again seems entirely appropriate in the political and social climate we find ourselves in today. Pushing against the powers that be has never run out of fashion and it stands equally as true today.

Worshipper / One of My Turns

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

ALEJANDRO: I don’t recall a time when Pink Floyd wasn’t a part of my awareness. My father was an avid music fan and record collector, so Floyd was often on the record player when I was young. “The Wall” was one of the first gatefold records I held as a kid. The towering butt overlord was mesmerizing. As a musician, my appreciation for the band goes in cycles. There was a time in my 20s when I couldn’t get away from The Wall or Dark Side because they were everywhere. Friends couldn’t wait to gift me a copy of “The Wall” the movie on VHS or DVD which is difficult because, let’s face it, it’s a dark movie. Who has the emotional fortitude to watch this Pink guy slice his eyebrows off? It’s tough. But, at some point a revisit of The Final Cut or Relics b-sides or Echoes or Shine on or Animals sends me back into another Floyd-obsession phase. For some reason I never got around to seeing the Pompeii stuff until recently, when we started writing our current record, so I climbed into that rabbit hole for a bit. The connection, for me, is the fearlessness in songwriting and the immense power four guys can make together and all the inventiveness that goes along with that. I think if you’re going to be in a band you need to see what Floyd was all about. They invented a lot of what you need to make it work. If you don’t you’re just being an asshole to yourself and your bandmates.

JB: It’s funny, my dad is a GIGANTIC Floyd fan and that is probably the #1 reason. He had all the records and a bunch of bootlegs (which he has since passed along to me) and while he would play them around the house while I stared in amazement at the back cover of Ummagumma, he never forced them on me or anything. It wasn’t until I borrowed his van in college and found a tape of a bootleg from ‘72 under the seat that it really sealed the deal for me. We had Live at Pompeii on Laser Disc and everything, but it wasn’t until I discovered what I liked about them on my own terms that it all clicked for me in a personal way. I tend to gravitate toward the early stuff like Obscured by Clouds, MORE, Relics, and Meddle, but I love it all. But, to answer your question more concisely, they have basically been a part of my life for as long as I can remember and a huge part of my relationship with my dad.

I think all of us are into Floyd in different ways, which is cool, as well. Like, Jarvis is a maniac about the Wall, but not much appreciation for the Syd stuff, while I am sort of the opposite. I like all of that ridiculous British 60s acid-damaged tea and crumpets stuff.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering “One of My Turns?”

ALEJANDRO: It was a different type of song for us. We do covers all the time but this one was a challenge since it’s kind of two songs in one. The front half is a bit of a theatrical vignette, so we debated if we should stick to the actual narrative from the record, where we use the dialogue of Pink’s guest in his room while he’s watching “The Dam Busters” on TV. In the end we ditched the groupie and focused on the significance of what a protagonist in “The Wall” in 2018 might be watching which, in our version, is the scene from “All the President’s Men” where Robert Redford gets the “follow the money” speech from Deep Throat. Seems an appropriate commentary right now. On top of that, there was the opportunity to record and build a section based on John’s synth and keys treatment which we did separately from the second, more-straightforward half of the song.

JB: I had to really dissect this one, personally, to get to the bones of it and figure out what was going on. With such a grand production, it was a little tricky to pick apart. Al said that he was working on the strategy for the front half, and I kind of took the lead with the back half, doing a demo at home and trying to figure out how to put our stamp on it and how to approach the vocals without trying to imitate Roger’s utterly unhinged performance. I basically had to reharmonize the vocal melody a little (ok, a lot) to make it work with my range and demeanor. And then the front half was really our first attempt at creating something from scratch in the studio (not working from playing live.) I’m really into synths, so I had fun doing the pads in the intro and making more of a “headphone experience” … Al had a map of the chord structure of the intro, so he kind of yelled out chords and we built it up piece by piece until the vibe was right. I really wasn’t sure I would be able to pull off such an intimate vocal like Roger does, but, I’m happy with how that came out. It should be noted that Chris Johnson did an amazing job recording and producing it. Especially since we had to kind of graft the front half onto the back half, but he made it work!

Does today feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

ALEJANDRO: It does. There’s never a bad time to revisit “The Wall,” but today seems a particularly good time. The Wall as Roger Waters conceived it was metaphorical, right? A dude with dad-issues and a lifetime of intimacy problems? Now the idea of “a wall” is an analogue for the ideologies of greed, division, nationalism, fear that, in America, play out constantly on social media, tv, newspapers, it’s everywhere. Working with MER to add a voice to a commentary about it and celebrate the music and message of Pink Floyd? Sounds right. Sign us up. This is one of the reasons we play in a band. It’s a shitshow out there and it’s time to get dressed and show up to the party. America is pretty happening party, but insane assholes are soiling the punch and passing out bad drugs, and the DJ is a punishing monster right now. I’m glad I got a band that wants to kick down the door, squeeze off a few rounds on the fire extinguisher, and put some Floyd on the stereo ‘cause whatever’s on at the moment has got to stop.

JB: Did you see Roger Waters on that last tour? If anything, this is a PERFECT time to revisit this album. All of his lyrics can be interpreted as being completely current in today’s political climate. Maybe the Animals record more than this one, but wow, he really created some timeless lyrics that make sense in pretty much any era. Until everybody gets along, I think Roger’s lyrics will always resonate. This has also been great for me, personally, because The Wall was never really “my Floyd album” so it gave me a reason to really dig into it again and learn to really appreciate it. Not that I didn’t appreciate it, I just always found it to be a little on the “emotionally draining” side. Now, I don’t see it that way anymore, so thanks for helping me with that!

Gary Arce / Yawning Man / Outside the Wall / Mudmen

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

To be honest we grew up with punk rock and we were very young when we started doing music, not caring much for references. As for Pink Floyd I can see how we share a similar approach to guitar sounds and spatiality, as well as riffs and tempo with some of their songs. It’s that they started with blues and you can hear rock is a part of us. I think some members of Pink Floyd also kind of grew up together as we did. Playing in the desert with our mates, most of them are luckily still around doing their thing, that’s what pushed us.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

Our approach is usually very instinctive. We love jamming and see what we come up with. That’s how we did the covers, too. We‘re not like wracking our brains too much before we start, that’s not how we play. We just start and the music keeps flowing. It was fun and lots of Mexican food kept us going.

Does today feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

The Wall made the history of music. Many have been if you want it or not (consciously or unconsciously) influenced by it. On tour I talk to many fans after concerts or they come up and talk to me. They know a lot about music and love to establish connections between their idols and the younger bands. Psych sounds are having a huge revival in Europe, the US and Canada. We see that when we play live and most of the shows are sold out. So I guess it’s a good moment to revisit The Wall and see what it’s got to tell us now.

Amy Tung / Year of the Cobra / When the Tigers Broke Free / Have a Cigar

As musicians and music fans, what’s your connection to Pink Floyd?

The funny thing about Pink Floyd is that they’re not one of my favorite bands, but they’re certainly one of the most influential bands in my life. If I think about the time in my life where music influenced me the most, like as a preteen or a teenager, they’re certainly one of the top 5. They’re one of those bands that, at some point in your life, you have to dive into, head first, and in doing so, you become a more fulfilled human being. It obviously doesn’t apply to everyone, but to most of the people that I relate to, it does. It is impossible to not have the utmost respect for them and never in my life did I imagine I would be asked to cover any of their music. I never thought I would be able to, but to have the opportunity to do so was outrageously challenging and exciting. I don’t expect anyone to find our take on their music better than what already existed. I just hope people find it interesting and inventive and I hope it opens their minds to something different and new.

How did you arrive at your approach in covering your song?

My approach to covering any song is to find a way to change it. I feel like you can never make a song exactly like the original because it will never sound better than it already does. The only option you have is to change it. My goal is to find a way to keep the essence of the song intact but insert a little bit of me in it. Covering the songs “Have a Cigar” and “When the Tigers Broke Free” as Year of the Cobra was certainly limiting, seeing that we’re only a drum and bass duo, but it was also fun trying to find a way to do justice to the music, while also doing justice to us as a band. In the studio, we added some more instrumentation (I.e. keyboards), but I feel like it’s still something we could play (and maybe… hopefully… will play) live, one day.

Does today feel like a good time to revisit an iconic album like The Wall? Why or why not?

The Wall will always be an album to revisit; today, tomorrow, in the future. It’s timeless. There are no contemporary bands that even come close to writing an album of epic proportions like The Wall and there are too many kids that have grown up listening to the formulaic music that is spewed out on modern radio these days, it’s depressing to think what their lives would be like if they weren’t introduced to albums like The Wall. It is imperative that we keep these albums alive in any way we can, so they are never forgotten. Finding bands to cover them, breathe new life into them, is such an exciting way to keep them alive, to keep us talking about them. I hope in 10 years, more bands are covering this album and keeping it alive for more generations to come.

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There are very few in or around heavy rock in any of its iterations who can boast a resumé to rival that of Scott Reeder. As bassist in Across the River with Mario Lalli (Fatso Jetson), Mark Anderson and Alfredo Hernandez (later Kyuss), he took part in one of the formative moments of desert rock, and would later reinforce its ascent in Kyuss, playing on their seminal final two albums only after joining with Scott “Wino” Weinrich in the revitalized The Obsessed for their 1991 outing, Lunar Womb. He played on Unida‘s unreleased masterpiece, joined Goatsnake for the 2004 Trampled Under Hoof EP, and released a solo record, TunnelVision Brilliance, in 2006, all the while making a name for himself as a recording engineer and producer for the likes of Orange Goblin, SunnO))), Whores of Tijuana, The Freeks and Sixty Watt Shaman — later also recording in his Sanctuary Studio in the desert with Karma to Burn, Black Math Horseman, Sonic Medusa, Dali’s Llama and Blaak Heat Shujaa, among many others. His vocal contribution to “Garden Sessions III” from Yawning Sons‘ 2009 debut, Ceremony to the Sunset, remains a high point of that album.

In 2013, he found chart success contributing bass to the single “From Can to Can’t” on the Sound City: Real to Reel soundtrack to Dave Grohl‘s Sound City documentary, and in November he made his debut with Sun and Sail Club on their first outing, Mannequin, adding his bass to the guitar of Bob Balch and the drums of (a different) Scott Reeder, both of Fu Manchu.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Scott Reeder

How did you come to do what you do?

It’s in my blood — all four of my Grandparents have been musicians. My parents played music together before I was even born… so it’s always been a big part of my life. I’ve had a few non-musical detours in my life, but I always seem to gravitate back to being in or around it.

Describe your first musical memory.

My Grandparents on my Mom’s side would have jazz jam sessions at their house a lot when I was very young. My Grandpa is still one of the best guitarists I’ve ever seen, but I would always be drawn to the bass amp, and I’d sit right in front of that amp for hours, feeling that thump, and hearing the walking bass lines weaving through the music. That guy’s name was Sid Fridkin — I was always amazed at how he knew the perfect “weird” notes to throw in.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

I would have to say jamming in the Across the River days, around 1985 and ’86, with Mario Lalli and Alfredo Hernandez. We were really just starting out, and loved playing, and began getting better and better at expressing ourselves — it was really exciting to start realizing that we could do anything we set our minds to! Our garage was insulated pretty well and we painted glow in the dark stars all over — we’d jam for hours, exploring every weird little idea that came up… Mario and I both had our future wives, Nana and Renee living there with us, too — it was a magical time. And after our friend Dave Travis introduced us to the generator and we’d played a few crazy parties outside, we discovered it was nice just to go out ourselves into the desert and just jam under the real stars. The best times for me were when we just went out with our very close friends… it was peaceful, and inspiring. Later on, it turned into big parties, and eventually just got out of control. Knives, guns, fires, police… but the early days were pretty fucking awesome.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

I had an out-of-body experience when I was 16, when I was fully conscious, before I’d had any sort of mind-altering substance. I was playing trombone with the local college’s jazz band, sight-reading a really tough chart with the band, when I “popped out” — I was looking back at myself from a few feet away, and I could hear every note coming out perfectly, even though I wasn’t conscious whatsoever of reading the music. There was a complete calm, like the quiet of diving under water and not moving… and then I snapped back to struggling through the chart. It seemed perfectly natural when it happened, but when I was waiting afterward for my Mom to pick me up, I realized it was a little weird. I had no idea what had just happened, but I stumbled upon a book a few months later about OBE’s called The Astral Experience, and it documented people trying to reach the experience with LSD. And so that became my next journey at age 16, before I’d even tasted a beer or took a puff off a joint. To this day, that book is on a table in our bathroom for our guests to check out… That initial experience made me believe that our spirit is indeed separate from the body.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

I usually don’t have much to write about unless something is really eating at me. I’ve been in the studio singing a few times with tears streaming down my face, but then it gets transformed into something I can embrace — it’s like therapy, I guess. Recording some of them have been pretty painful, but it’s a huge catharsis to get it out, and it feels good when it resonates with a few people. As far as progression goes… I don’t think I’m going to have an epiphany someday on how to write a hit song, or anything. I’ve got all the tools I need to express myself — I suppose the songs will just slowly follow the course of my life over time. I’m not very prolific, but that’s fine — I don’t have a deal with a label breathing down my neck for “product.” I just trickle stuff out on iTunes or whatever… slow motion is fine for me. And I guess that if I only write when things are bugging me… then the fewer times I have to go through the process, the better!

How do you define success?

That’s a tricky one. There are small successes possible every day, striving to be the best you can be at everything you do, whether it be putting down a bass track or raking up some horse shit. Laughing with each other. Enjoying the simple pleasures. Life is in a constant state of flux — at the end, it won’t matter how much money you made, or how many things you acquired. I’ve lived among the rat race, with everyone stepping over each other, not thinking of any consequence to stabbing each other in the back — that’s not the life for me at all. I’ve tried to slow down my life, keeping it as simple as I can, for the most part. There have been some bumps in the road over the last couple of years, but it’s inspired me to focus on what’s important on a deeper level, I think, and I’m still searching. But I think the most important thing we can do, is to do our best to elevate each other.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Well… I guess this is supposed to be an ugly one. After my Mom passed away a couple of months ago, she was laid out on her bed. The coroner was running very late, so it was great to be able to take our time saying goodbyes. However, I was alone in the room about six hours in, and dark fluid started coming out of her mouth — I tried to quickly clean her face so that her husband and his kids and grandchildren and my brother wouldn’t have to see that, but it started streaming out faster than I could wipe it away, as I was desperately trying to keep everyone out of the room. That image will always haunt me. On the positive side, hopefully it helps me to process the reality of her death a little quicker. But, no rush…

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

Hmmm… That would be our future swimming pool with a guest cabana and a big patio for barbecues!

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

That would definitely be the next time I take my horse out for a ride. That’s probably the only time I’m really away from music, even though you get completely enmeshed into the rhythm of the horse’s gait. It’s like a meditation, becoming one with the horse — it clears my head and calms me. I should be doing it every day, but I get busy…

Sun and Sail Club, Mannequin (2013)

Scott Reeder’s website

Sun and Sail Club on Thee Facebooks